New Hampshire Primary Source covers breaking and behind-the-scenes news and analysis on the 2016 races and all things political in the Granite State. John DiStaso is the most experienced political writer in New Hampshire and has been writing a weekly column since 1982.

(Tuesday, Nov. 15, update)

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NHGOP FUNDRAISER. After winning the governor’s office and keeping majorities in the state House, Senate and Executive Council, the state Republican Party is planning a “Victory Dinner” fundraiser for next month.

New Hampshire Primary Source has learned that the event will be held on Dec. 7 at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Manchester with Gov.-elect Chris Sununu as the special guest.

Tickets range from $65-a-person, to $500 for a table, to $1,000 for a sponsorship.

Sununu last week was the first Republican elected governor since Craig Benson in 2002. Republicans maintained a 14-10 majority in the state Senate, although one race will be the subject of a recount scheduled for Wednesday.

There will be 14 recounts in the House, but as a result of the initial election tallies, Republican have a 224-176 majority, House Clerk Paul Smith told WMUR.com last week.

Republicans also maintained their 3-2 majority on the five-member Executive Council.

While the GOP will control the State House, all four members of the state’s congressional delegation will be Democrats when Gov. Maggie Hassan is sworn in as a U.S. Senator and U.S. Rep. Ann Kuster and former U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter return to the U.S. House in January.

(The original Nov. 10 New Hampshire Primary Source column follows.)

PEASANTS WITH PITCHFORKS LIVE. On Feb. 20, 1996, conservative firebrand Patrick J. Buchanan won the New Hampshire first-in-the-nation presidential primary by a single percentage point over eventual GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole.

Dole went on to get crushed by Bill Clinton in the general election, but the populist conservative movement that Buchanan had begun four years earlier in his better-than-expected showing against President George H.W. Bush did not die. It resurfaced prominently when the Tea Party movement pushed the GOP to a congressional majority in 2010. And now, it has reached its apex.

Two days before his win in the 1996 primary, Buchanan held a memorable rally at the Sheraton Hotel in Nashua. We thought of it on Wednesday at 3:20 a.m. as we watched Donald Trump step to the podium in New York City and claim victory as the 45th president of the United States.

Flash back 20-1/2 years to Nashua.

“They are in a terminal panic in Washington, my friends,” Buchanan told the 1996 Nashua crowd, which was much smaller than a 2016 Trump rally, but every bit as enthusiastic.

“They are frightened,” he declared. “They hear the shouts of the peasants from over the hill. You watch the establishment – all the knights and barons will be riding into the castle, pulling up the drawbridge in a minute.”

“They’re comin’. All the peasants are comin’ with pitchforks after ‘em. We’re going to take this over the top.”

Buchanan’s “peasants with pitchforks” theme has a familiar ring in the aftermath of the 2016 campaign.

The day of the peasants has finally arrived. The populist message that Buchanan sounded in the 1990s is perhaps more poignant today than at any time since.

A young staffer for the Buchanan campaign in 1996 was Manchester’s Mike Biundo, now a senior adviser to the Trump campaign.

“It does seem very reminiscent of 1996 in a lot of ways,” he told us on Wednesday morning. “That same energy that Pat inspired here has moved across the country. People were looking for change and something different. They went to the polls and did it.

“It’s a populist movement and reminds me of a lot of stuff we heard back then.”

Trump did not win New Hampshire’s four electoral votes, of course. Despite much Tuesday night speculation, the Granite State ended up not playing a decisive role in the presidential race.

According to certified totals released by the Secretary of State’s Office, figures from the Associated Press, Trump lost to Clinton in New Hampshire, 348,497 to 345,810, or 2,687 votes.

ALL BLUE IN D.C. For Democrats in New Hampshire, it was a bittersweet election. It was bitter nationally with Hillary Clinton losing to Trump. And bitter locally with the party losing the governor’s office for the first time since 2002.

But it is sweet for party faithful from the perspective that for the first time since before the Civil War, all four members of the state’s congressional delegation will be Democrats – not to mention that all four are women.

We agreed with political experts that Sen. Kelly Ayotte appeared to have momentum on her side in the final few days of the all-important U.S. Senate race. We agreed with the experts that Ayotte would probably survive a Trump loss in New Hampshire, as long as that loss was 5 percentage points or less.

Well, Trump lost to Clinton 48 percent to 47 percent in New Hampshire and Ayotte lost to Gov. Maggie Hassan by 1,032 votes out of 738,420 cast, not counting write-ins. (Secretary of State Bill Gardner, by the way, accurately predicted that 738,660 votes would be cast.)

Interestingly, both Ayotte and Hassan far outpolled the top of the ticket. Hassan received 353,640 votes while Clinton received 348,497. Ayotte received 353,617 votes, while Trump received 345,810.

So what cost Ayotte the election? A combination of factors.

There were likely a fair number of Trump voters who were angered by Ayotte’s withdrawal of her support for him after his infamous “Access Hollywood” video. She said at the time that rejecting Trump for his vulgar comments on that video was more important to her than winning any election.

There were likely also a fair number of conservatives who were unhappy with her votes for President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan and what they viewed as her pandering to the more liberal wing of the party and moderate independents.

Moderates were unhappy with her decision to go along with the GOP majority and refuse to hold a confirmation hearing on Obama U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

THE AARON DAY FACTOR. But the biggest spoilers for Ayotte in the Senate race were independent Aaron Day, who received 17,671 votes, and Libertarian Brian Chabot, who received 12,492 votes.

Day announced he’d challenge Ayotte for the Senate – either in a primary or as a general election independent – back in 2014 after she tried to influence the New Hampshire House Republican caucus race in favor of former speaker Gene Chandler over former speaker Bill O’Brien. Day’s concern then was that if Chandler had become speaker, Medicaid expansion would have been extended, while O’Brien would have moved to kill it.

As it turned, out O’Brien won the caucus, but lost the overall race for speaker to Shawn Jasper. And Medicaid expansion was extended.

“Mission accomplished,” he told New Hampshire Primary Source on Wednesday.

“I gave Kelly Ayotte 15 months of advance notice to try to follow the party platform. It started with Medicaid expansion, and then she got involved in the Guinta thing.”

The “Guinta thing” was Ayotte’s call for Rep. Frank Guinta to resign after his Federal Election Commission issues.

“She has a horrible voting record, yet she was a rising star,” Day said. “I felt we had to cut her off now, which is why I ran. People are sick of what she represents – an unbridled desire to climb the political ladder. It got shut down, and that’s fantastic.”

But, Day admits, “How I got the number of votes that I did, I don’t’ know. I didn’t do anything. I had no website and I didn’t spend any money. But I do know a lot of people.”

NOW WHAT? What will Ayotte do now professionally and politically?

Well, a state Supreme Court appointment is a possibility, with Chief Justice Linda Dalianis reaching the retirement age of 70 in two years. It’s unclear if Ayotte, at age 48, would want the job.

Private practice at a top-end law firm, either in New Hampshire or Washington, is of course possible.

And then there’s the U.S. Senate again, maybe in 2020. Would she take on Sen. Jeanne Shaheen?

That seems doubtful right now, but if Shaheen decides not to seek a third term, Ayotte would be a leading potential candidate.

GOV. SUNUNU II. There was palpable relief evident in former Gov. John H. Sununu’s voice on Wednesday afternoon.

Chris Sununu was 8-year-old when his father was elected governor in 1982. And now they become the first father-and-son gubernatorial combo since Hugh and Judd Gregg.

“Obviously, I’m thrilled,” the elder Sununu said. “I’m really proud of the campaign he ran and the focus on the positive, especially in light of the huge amount of money the Democrats put in trying to smear him with dishonest and disgusting ads.”

“But as great a night as it was for Chris and the family, we were disappointed to see Kelly lose and to see two congressional races end up as losses.”

Sununu said he was unsure if Ayotte’s withdrawal of her support for Trump hurt her, but he did note that she had $60 million worth of negative advertising run against her.

While Ayotte alienated the hard-core Trump supporters, the Sununus did not. Chris Sununu expressed outrage at Trump’s most outrageous comments but did not withdraw his support.

John H. Sununu is a former “Never Trumper” who got on board the train after Trump secured the presidential nomination and then selected Mike Pence as his running mate. The elder Sununu introduced Trump at many New Hampshire rallies and became an important surrogate on national cable television talk shows.

This certainly didn’t hurt his son’s standing with the Trump supporters.

GOP LEGISLATURE. While Democrats rule the congressional delegation, Republicans will dominate the State House. Sununu will become the first Republican governor since Craig Benson, who was elected 2002 but lost in 2004, and the GOP will hold onto the majorities in the New Hampshire House and state Senate.

Republicans won 13 seats on Tuesday, while Democrats won 10. Democratic Sen. Andrew Hosmer currently trails Republican challenger Harold French by 13 votes, according to Associated Press results, in a District 7 race that is too close to call.

THE O’CONNOR FACTOR. Independent 1st District U.S. House candidate Shawn O’Connor probably drew more votes from Carol Shea-Porter, the former and future congresswoman, or Republican Rep. Frank Guinta.

Conventional wisdom had O’Connor, a former Democrat, drawing heavily from Shea-Porter, but there is a school of thought that there were a group of Republican-leaning independents who could not bring themselves to vote for Guinta due to his FEC issues and yet could not vote for the liberal Shea-Porter, either.

In any event, O’Connor drew 34,506 votes, or 9 percent. Shea-Porter won with 162,114 votes, or 44 percent, and Guinta received 157,209 votes, or 43 percent. Libertarian Robert Lombardo and independent Brendan Kelly each received 2 percent, and their votes, had they gone to Guinta, would have been enough to make him the winner.

In the 2nd District, Democratic incumbent Ann Kuster pulled away after an early election night scare from Republican Jim Lawrence, and won 50 percent to 45 percent.

CLOSE-UP. This week on “CloseUP,” WMUR political director Josh McElveen’s guests will be Gov. and U.S. Sen.-elect Maggie Hassan, Republican activist Renee Plummer and former New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick. McElveen will also take a look back at a 2011 interview he conducted with President-elect Donald Trump. The program airs on Sunday at 10 a.m.

(John DiStaso can be reached at jdistaso@hearst.com or distasoj@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jdistaso and on Facebook: Facebook.com/JohnDiStasoWMUR.)